Research Guides: Book History: Digital Collections

Digital Collections

Digitized Medieval Manuscripts App (DMMap)
This website links to more than 500 libraries in the world which contain medieval manuscripts that can be browsed for free and includes a useful map function to pinpoint different libraries and their holdings.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains images (and where available also digitised texts) of dozens of thousands of books printed between 1473 and 1700; it covers almost anything printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America during that time, as well as English-language works printed elsewhere.
Islamic Manuscripts
A wealth of resources on Islamic manuscripts, including palaeography courses and pre-prints.

Belgica
Digital collection of the Royal Library of Belgium.
Biblioteca Digital Hispánica
Digital Collections of the National Library of Spain
Bibliotheca Nazionale Centrale Di Firenze: Biblioteca digitale
Manuscripts from the National Library in Florence
British Library, Digitised Manuscripts
British Library Flickr Page
Contains over 1,000,000 public domain book illustrations.
Cambridge Digital Library
Contains digitised items from Cambridge University Library and College libraries.
Digital Bodleian
Contains over 700,000 images from the Bodleian Library and Oxford colleges libraries.
Digita Vaticana
Digita Vaticana Onlus is a non-profit organization founded in 2013 to promote the conversion of the Vatican Library manuscripts into digital format. The Association is raising the necessary funds to guarantee the digitization of over 80,000 manuscripts held in the Vatican Library.
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Illuminated: Manuscripts in the Making
Online resource including the Fitzwilliam Museum's illuminated manuscripts.
Gallica
The searchable database from the National Library of France.
Harvard Library Digital Collections
Includes medieval manuscripts, Mercator globes, the Islamic Heritage Project, early modern and modern crime broadsides, and a collection focusing on the history of reading ("Reading: Harvard Views of Readers, Readership and Reading History").
KTIV - The International Collection of Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts
Contains over 50,000 digitised Hebrew manuscripts from 39 participating institutions.
LUNA: Folger Digital Image Collection
Includes a First Folio image collection.
Manchester Digital Collections
Many different collections including the Rylands Collection, Early Printing Collection, Dante Collection (early printed editions), Hebraica Collection (manuscripts, amulets, archives, and printed books), and Genizah Collection (over 15,000 fragments).
MDZ Digitale Bibliothek
The Munich DigitiZation Center digital collections, containing items from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Munich) and other institutions. Contains over 2,000,000 items, including manuscripts, early printed books, and maps. Can be search by format, period, geographical region, publishing houses, and similar images.
The Morgan Library and Museum Collection Online
Includes drawings, music manuscripts, Rembrandt prints, and medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.
National Library of Scotland Digital Gallery
Can be browsed by theme.
National Library of the Netherlands, KB Collections
Includes medieval to modern manuscripts, early printed books, bookbindings, paper history, and collections by provenance.
New College Library and Archives Gallery
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Includes over 700,000 items, among which prints, maps, and manuscripts.
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Online Collections
Includes many Asiatic manuscripts.
SOAS Digital Collections
Many digitised collections (including books, manuscripts, and maps), which can be browsed by language, format, discipline, or geographic area.
St Andrews Digital Collections
Includes several digital collections relevant for book history and art history research, including manuscripts and rare books, early modern craftsmen's guild books, and early library receipt books (borrowing registers).
Trinity College Digital Repository
Includes Renaissance Illuminations, and early 20th c. postcards (many of them depicting classical sculptures).
UCLA Library Digital Collection
Includes medieval and Renaissance as well as Ethiopian and Armenian manuscripts.
UCL Digital Collections
Several digital collections including the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Digital Library (Greek literature and archaeology), the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library (early modern maps and travel books), and Medieval manuscripts fragments.
University of Sydney Digital Collections
Includes several medieval manuscripts.
US National Library of Medicine Digital Collections
Includes incunabula and materials on medicine in the Americas in the early modern era.
Wellcome Arabic Manuscripts Online
Contains digitised copies of many of the Wellcome Library's 1,000 Arabic manuscripts, most of them pertaining to the history of medicine.
See also http://wellcomelibrary.org/collections/browse/collections/digarabic/
Wellcome Library Digital Collections
Contains links to several digital collections of medieval and early modern books, including Arabic Manuscripts, Medieval Manuscripts, and Recipe Books.
To see full collections, go to "Browse Digitised Content".
Università di Roma, La Sapienza, Biblioteca Italiana
Italian primary sources, including manuscripts and incunables, from the 13th-18th centuries. Full-text search available and open access. Digitised by the Università di Roma, La Sapienza.